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Hello and welcome to The Compost Bin. I'm Compostwoman and I live with my family in rural Herefordshire. We have nearly four acres of garden and woodland, all managed organically, which we share with Chickens, Cats, Guinea Pigs and assorted wildlife. We also grow a lot of our own food, run courses in all sorts of things and make a lot of compost!

I work as an environmental educator, lecturer, writer and Forest School leader at Moors Wood . I am a Master Composter and have spent the last 11 years as a volunteer Community Compost adviser with Garden Organic and my local Council. I offer talks and run workshops and events where we talk about compost, veg growing, chicken keeping, cooking, preserving and sustainable living. We also make crafts and have fun.

We try to live a more self sufficient lifestyle here, as best we can, while still having a comfortable life and lots of fun.To learn more about us click on the About Compostwoman tab and remember to click on the photos to make them full size!

Wednesday, 22 January 2014

Granny square throw progress

With all the rain stopping outdoor work, I have been busy crocheting :-)

The plan is to make a "patchwork quilt" style granny square throw - joining the 9 squares together then putting a boarder around the block - then repeating the process so I end up with blocks of 9 squares joined together. There will be diagonal solid colour squares coming in from each corner of the finished throw, a very intricate square at each corner and a thick border around the whole thing.

This is the first of the "9 patch" blocks, crocheted together. it needs more blocking but it is square, honest!

These are more 9 squares waiting for me to join them together with the red yarn and add a pale green border around the block.

These are some of the other squares I have made - the purple/pink squares are for another wip - the brown/gold ones will be used in the patchwork style throw but scattered around as accent squares rather than in one block of 9 squares. The more intricate red/gold/green square is one of the corner squares I mentioned.

I am aiming for a King size throw for our bed, but maybe will make a couple of smaller ones instead - I will see how it looks when I have a few more of the patches completed. The colours are shades of golds, browns, greens, crimson, primrose and fawn from the Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino range ( love this yarn!)

I am planning on adding accent squares of solid colours as well.

I can make 3 or 4 squares an evening, while watching TV or listening to music/sitting by the fire. I weave in the ends as I go and the biggest time taker is the matching up and slip stitching together so it looks neat and tidy. That takes me an evening to do and I have to concentrate on it, not watch TV!

I work with a 4 mm hook and each square measures 12 cm after 6 rounds.

I have just added in some more shades of Autumnal colours from the latest batch of Debbie Bliss yarn, Burnt Sienna, Fudge, Apple Green, Primrose and Butter - all lovely toning shades and the effect, I think, is very pleasing :)

I didn't make it to either of the crafting sessions this week as I was working at home, but I did get to visit a lovely Yarn, Patchwork etc shop in Ledbury called Bodkins which is a treat to visit, and is run by a lovely lady, so I guess I will be visiting Ledbury more often :)

9 comments:

Looks lovely. Its what I term making something out of nothing time. I have quite a few UFO blankets on the go at the moment hopefully at least two of them the super king sized ones will be completed this year (my rainbow and cream blankets). The purple one I cannot get to the wool to finish the border. The pink white and mint green one will get back to at some point as will the pink and navy one and the single green, yellow and cream one. Sort of got ever so slightly out of hand.

I find them addictive - do you? I have several books of different deasigns now - and they are all lovely. I have had a go at 10 or so more complex ones with varying degrees of success - I am fine if I really concentrate but some need total silence to achieve lol.

Do you make squares for charity Pattypan? I was wondering about joining in with Mums Bloggy Blanket

Thank you Tpals :-) I must admit I am slightly impressed with my self :-)

I have been crocheting only since May last year - and found it only started to come more easily in the last couple of months - I really had to practise hard before it became more natural - I guess that is not surprising.

I used to love to crochet, but when I recently tried to go back to it I found it made me annoyed, no maybe that should read 'angry', not something you expect to feel about what should be a relaxing occupation. There was no problem with the actual work I made myself a pretty useful dishcloth with some cotton I picked up really cheaply, it was the feelings building up in me while I did it....very strange!!

Maybe I'll try again in a few months and see if I still get the same reaction.

Looks great have you tried the join as you go method of joining grannys much less stitching which is gret on a large project its over on Lucys blog attic 24 I join all mine that way know so much easier

I like the idea of making smaller squares into larger squares before 'joining' again to make a larger blanket. I did this with my 'Summer Blanket'. I like the idea of just finishing little bits.Love from Mumxx

Sue - oh no! I can understand if you were not able to get the result you want, but apart from that??

Kath - I love the "vintage" feel to it as well

Squirrel Family - yes I have looked at her blog - full of wonderful ideas! but I decided not to "join as you go" this time, because I wanted the option to lay out the squarea and re jig them, if I needed to. I might use it for the 9 x 9 patches, though...

thank you for the good wishes on getting back my crafting mojo :-)

Mum yes it does make me feel like I have completed something when I have a 9 square block finished :-)